"Hey Danny-boy" Jack called as he entered his friends office. The younger mans posture stiffened and he inwardly groaned at the interruption knowing Jack probably wouldn't leave for a while and that in the meantime many of his artifacts would suffer at the hands of a bored Colonel.
"Jack," Daniel acknowledged warily, watching as his team mate sat down across from him and regarded the archaeologist with a self-appreciative grin.
"What?" Daniel asked, not sure if he really wanted to know what had the Colonel so pleased with himself.
"I just finished up with Claire," he stated.
"You were in there for a long time, did she tell you anything of use?"
Daniel asked, his translations long forgotten.
"Possibly"
"Well?" Daniel pushed, wishing Jack would just spit it out already.
"Here take a look," Jack said tossing his notebook, which Claire had written in, on top of Daniels work.
"What's this?" Daniel asked flipping between the three pages of writing and small symbols on them.
"This is what Claire remembers from before she was put in foster care. She said she remembers there being two suns in the sky where she's from and that the constellations were all totally different from the ones we see here, and she also remembers some people coming to where ever she's from that had glowing eyes." Daniels head shot up from the notebook, and his eyes widened slightly.
"The Goa'uld?" he asked. Jack nodded.
"Yeah, so I got her to write down whatever writing and symbols she remembered, and you'll notice there's a gate address too, and there ya go" Jack said pointing to the book in Daniels hands. "So have fun," he said as he got up and went to leave.
"Wait, where are you going?" Daniel questioned, surprised that Jack was actually going to leave him to do his work.
"I'm gonna go give general Hammond the gate address so he can get Carter to check the planet out and then I'm gonna go get the kid and take her to the commissary for a bite to eat."
"Oh"
"Have fun," Jack's voice could be heard saying around the corner as he walked down the corridor. Daniel didn't hear, as he carefully examined the writing Claire had jotted down. It seemed almost like the writing of the ancients, except it looked more like actual writing than just combinations of vertical dashes. Getting up and getting a fresh cup of coffee, from his personal coffee maker, he pushed all his reports and other work to the side and ripping the pages from the notebook, he laid them and began to try to figure out what it said, or at least what the origins of it were.
Claire sat at the table where SG1 had for the most part tried and failed to get information out of her, playing solitaire. She was going to be in so much trouble when she got back to her foster parents house that she didn't even want to think about it. Hearing a knock at the door she abandoned her game and opened the door. She was surprised to see Jack, or anyone from his team for that matter because she had been so rude to them. Well except that creepy big guy she reminded herself having noticed that Teal'c never came to see her.
"Uh hi" she greeted uncertainly.
"You hungry?" Jack asked rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet casually.
"Um, okay," she answered not certain why he was there yet. He smiled kindly, which freaked Claire out, since he had no reason to be nice to her at all. She watched him carefully.
"Come on, we'll go get some dinner… no wait I guess it would be breakfast? Anyways, lets go." He said motioning with his head into the hallway. Claire emerged from the room slowly and walked beside Jack to the elevator. They made their way to the commissary and got their food in silence. Sitting down at a table along a wall, Claire finally couldn't take it any more,
"Why are you being so nice to me?" she asked suspiciously.
"Why shouldn't I be?" he said, and continued before she could say anything. "After all, I did pull a gun on you, threatened you, picked you up and pretty much threw you onto a gurney in the infirmary and though I doubt you would ever admit it, I think I scared you." he said honestly, taking a big bite of his scrambled eggs (since they had established it was breakfast time).
"I'm not scared," she protested, not realizing she proved his point. She pushed her food around on her plate aimlessly, watching it thoughtfully.
"I didn't know eggs and bacon were that thought provoking" Jack commented.
"What?" she asked looking up in puzzlement.
"Something on your mind?" she hesitated before answering him with a small forced laugh,
"Yeah, I was just thinking about how pissed my foster parents are gonna be that I've been out all night". Jack visibly winced. Not once had anybody thought to call her family, and he knew she would get into trouble because of them.
"Eh, don't worry about it kid, we'll take ya home in the morning, at a more decent hour, and explain everything to your family" he offered.
"Their not my family," she quickly said and suddenly found the food on her plate very interesting once again. Sensing that was a touchy subject, something Jack felt was none of his business he changed the subject.
"So why were you trying to steal my wallet?" he tried. She glanced at him quickly, obviously embarrassed.
"I guess you wouldn't believe me if I said when I bumped into you it fell outta your pocket huh?" she asked nervously.
"Ah, no."
"I was admiring the craftsmanship of it?"
"Yeah and I'm Martha Stewart" he retorted. Claire's eyes widened and her jaw dropped and she grabbed the edges of the table as if to hold her self up,
"You are??" she asked feigning astonishment.
"Stop trying to change the subject." He said leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest.
"Money" she said so quietly he barely heard her.
"For what?"
"This and that," she answered obscurely.
"Mmm hmm, like what?"
"Oh you know the usual… cd's, clothes, a bus ticket," she answered even more quietly.
"Planning on going somewhere?"
"Anywhere but Colorado Springs" she muttered plainly.
"Why?"
"What are you – a shrink or something?"
"No, I'm just wondering what would be so bad that you would steal to be able to run away" Claire looked at the table again, a mixture of sadness, anger and resentment flashing across her features, before Jack saw all her walls go back up.
"Don't like your foster parents or something?" he asked watching as she stopped twirling her ring on her finger and froze entirely. So that's the problem Jack thought, finally putting two and two together remembering how she seemed to get touchy when people mentioned her foster family. She looked at him like a deer in caught in the headlights.
"Bingo" he murmured, using her phrase from when he first went to question her.
"So they mean or something?"
"Just drop it okay?" she said callously, but he could see in her eyes she was pleading with him to leave that topic alone.
"I - "
"It's none of your business." She snapped interrupting whatever Jack was going to say.
"Okay, okay" he said raising his hands in the air in his defence, "don't shoot" he teased gently, wondering what the foster people had done to make her so edgy.
They left the commissary not long after that and Jack escorted Claire back to the VIP quarters, before going to see how Daniel was coming along with the writing from the Claire's memories.
Jack walked down the corridor, deciding to take a detour to Sam's lab before seeing Daniel.
"Hey Carter whatcha up to?" he asked lightly, "did you get any sleep like I told you to?" he continued upon seeing her tired expression.
"No sir I haven't had time to sleep yet, and I have been going over the recording from the MALP that we sent to P6B 445, trying to determine if it is safe for us to visit"
"P6B 445?" he asked sitting down on a stool and taking a small metal instrument into his hands. Sam resisted the urge to grab it back from him possessively.
"Yes sir, it's the planet that Claire's gate address led to. As far as I can tell it has a breathable atmosphere and there doesn't appear to be hostiles around, but the gate seems to be in some sort of temple, so there's no way to know for sure." She finished taking a big gulp of her semi-cold coffee. Scrunching up her nose in disgust she dumped the rest down the sink beside her.
"Sweet"
"Yes sir" Sam said with a small smile, gently pulling the 'doohickey' from her CO's hands and placing on a workbench far out of his reach.
"Well go get some sleep, we're gonna drop Claire off at home tomorrow to explain to her parents why she didn't come home last night"
"Okay sir" Sam said trying to hide an impending colossal yawn.
"We'll leave at 0900 hours"
"Yes sir" Sam agreed. And she ran a hand tiredly through her hair. For once she actually would go get some sleep. SG1 had just gotten back from a long tiring mission, on a planet experiencing monsoon season, the previous morning, and having gotten little sleep on their outing, she was pretty much running on empty.
Knowing the Colonel would be going to tell Daniel to go to bed next, she didn't bother to go see the archaeologist.
Yawning massively, again, she flicked off the light in her lab and locked the door.
"Tomorrow should be fun," she muttered as she entered the elevator. She so did not want to explain to anybody why the Air Force had kidnapped their kid for a night. The elevator doors slid shut taking a very tired Major to some much needed rest.
TBC…I know the story isn't going anywhere fast, but I have a major case of writers block right now and this is sorta my way of stalling until I have a better idea of where the story is going.
So that being said please review, tell me what you think and ideas about where the story should go from here are extremely welcome :)